The presence of others who see what we see and hear what we hear assures us of the reality of the world and ourselves.

The possible redemption from the predicament of irreversibility - of being unable to undo what one has done - is the faculty of forgiving.

Revolutions are the only political events which confront us directly and inevitably with the problem of beginning.

the touchstone of a free act - from the decision to get out of bed in the morning or take a walk in the afternoon to the highest resolutions by which we bind ourselves for the future - is always that we know that we could also have left undone what we actually did.

Goodness that comes out of hiding and assumes a public role is no longer good, but corrupt in its own terms and will carry its own corruption wherever it goes.

In order to go on living one must try to escape the death involved in perfectionism.

To be sure, nothing is more important to the integrity of the universities . . . than a rigorously enforced divorce from war-oriented research and all connected enterprises.